The shot echoed and reëchoed in the cañon. Tom Lee did not move. Scudder glared up at him and made as if to lift the weapon again, then he hurled it from him with another curse, and kicked at something on the sand at his feet. A shrill scream broke from him. Something fell away from his kick--an incoherent, feeble object that slipped to the sand and blended there, shapeless and invisible; a stark-blind thing, a living volute of death and venom--a rattler, that had struck blind, but that had struck home! With that scream still on his lips, Scudder whirled about and began to run. He fled, as though after him pursued some invisible and awful thing. He ran blindly down the valley as though in search of something, desperate in his extremity; he passed the automobile in which he had come, running, stumbling through the soft sand. And so out of sight around the twist in the cañon. "Let him go! It is finished." The words came from Tom Lee. He turned to Murray, smiling, and the smile seemed fastened in his face. He lifted his arm, and looked at the hand, curiously. A cry broke from Murray, for the hand was streaming with a scarlet fluid. Abruptly, Tom Lee pitched forward and lay in a heap, just as Claire, called by the shot, appeared. CHAPTER XIII UNTANGLED A flivver that bore two men, came crawling down the slope of the desert-rim in the early morning. Near the approach to Morongo Valley, it halted. The two men alighted to inspect a heap in the sand, from which a carrion bird flapped heavily away. They looked at the body, glanced at each other, then silently got into the car and continued their journey. "Rattler, I judge," observed Sandy Mackintavers. "And a good job." The car crept up the valley to the shack, stopped, coughed, and became silent. Murray was awaiting it, pale and weak but walking; beside him was Claire, and joining them was Tom Lee, his right arm in a sling. Murray's face lighted up, and his hand shot out. "Willyum!" he cried delightedly. "We thought we must be dreaming when we saw you! And Sandy too--but I thought you were behind the bars!" Across the earnest features of Bill Hobbs broke a rippling light of gleeful mirth. "Say!" he exclaimed, while he pumped Murray's hand. "Say, I gotta hand it to that sheriff for bein' a prize boob! I was wanted all right--three years ago! Since then, I done the time an' got out again, see? When the answer come to his wire, that was the sickest guy you ever seen! But say, Doc, how are you?" "Fine! Coming around all right." Murray's gaze went to Sandy Mackintavers. "What stroke of luck turned you loose, Sandy?" The voice of Tom Lee interposed, with a chuckle. "That was my doing, gentlemen," he said blandly. "The contractor, Hennesy, preferred to withdraw all charges against Mr. Mackintavers, to losing my contract. And, Mr. Mackintavers! I wish you'd come up the hill here. There's something I want to show you."